As Cristina Kirchner asked weeks ago, the Government will examine the costs and profit margins of more than 15 consumer goods companies lead to unjustified price increases and abusive practices. This was expressly requested by the Secretary of Commerce, Matías Tombolini, who instructed the National Commission for the Defense of Competition to clarify or confirm suspicions about “some strange price movements”according to official sources.
The provision was made official Tuesday in the Official Gazette with resolution 68/2022, with which The defense of competition will have 30 days to prepare a report on the behavior of the companies. In that period the office (which depends on Tombolini) has to check two things. The first, if a company with a dominant position harm your competitors through price formation. And the second, if its cost structure justifies the values of some products.
Such actions are in tune with Cristina’s claims and her concern about high inflation. On Monday, the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, announced yesterday that he is preparing “A stabilization plan between December and March” to block prices “in the hottest months of the year” on products that “represent 86%” of mass consumption.
He also specified that work is underway on the development of a new function of the app “My Argentina”, which will allow people to check gondola prices by simply scanning the barcode. He added that if this does not happen, violations can be reported by the application itself, with corporate fines that could reach $ 240 million.
Official sources have made it clear that they are seeking an agreement with manufacturers of food, drinks, toiletries and cleaning, to freezes prices from 1,200 to 1,500 leading brand items for 120 days. “We give companies with certainty incentives to enter foreign exchange markets and tax incentive programs. If we respect, we all win ”, underlined the minister.
At the same time, Tombolini met the leaders of the ASU (United Supermarkets Association) yesterday at noon, to ask them to refuse increases of more than 4% per month in those products that are not included in the Care Prices program (to date there are 452) and in the future Fair Prices basket, which would come into force next month, depending on the progress of negotiations with the main producers of basic products.
All in the midst of the opening of the investigation on “more than 15 manufacturers” by the Defense of the competition, whose names have not yet been disclosed.
From Commerce explain that “in the usual price monitoring unusual movements were observed. This means nothing for now. What Tombolini asked for is that the matter is being investigated“. In case of ascertainment of irregularities (cases of dominant position or excessive increases based on the costs of inputs, for example, the Government could apply sanctions to the corresponding companies.
These actions take place two weeks before October inflation is known, which for private consultants is on average close to 7%, and predict a bigger jump for the sensitive item such as food and drink. For LCG, for example, groceries have increased by 7.9% in the last 4 weeks against an overall inflation of 6.5%.
Eco Go handles similar numbers. Regarding the latest announcements, such as the “agreed” price freeze for 4 months, the chief economist of that consultancy, Sebastián Menescaldi, interprets that “in general, they are tools through which public officials can demonstrate that they are doing something for fight inflation, even if only with blank bullets or useless tools, except on rare occasions and with limited effects, “he said Clarione.
Source: Clarin
